The Best Pizza in NYC for Every Budget

The single best slice or pie at every price point, from .99 cents to $30.

Written by:Arthur Bovino

Images via Arthur Bovino, Art via Sho Hanafusa

Pizza is the first food of independence. A few bucks enable a kid to enter the free market economy, and the words, “I left money for pizza,” kickstart life unsupervised. It's a hunger equalizer, powering campaigns, construction sites, term papers, mega-mergers, and eight-hour shifts. But given New York’s pizza heritage (the birthplace of American pizza) and proficiency at styles (Sicilian, grandma, neo-Neapolitan), comparing pizzas fairly can be challenging. How do you rate a classic slice against a Neapolitan pie?

Then there’s the minutiae we pizza snobs obsess over: coal, wood and deck ovens; dough hydration; house-ground flour. Basta! We won’t even talk cheese and sauce. Three shiny quarters can be the price difference between dollar slices that are ruining the city's rep for great pizza and an amazing spot that's been slinging for nearly 100 years. In order to restore some order, we compiled a ranking of best pies by price.

That’s to say: this isn’t a list of pizzas by quality, but the best pizza (slices and full pies) of any style topped with anything on the table, at dollar increments from $.99 to $30.

We should note some figures. First, after examining prices across America, NPR determined you almost always get a better deal when you buy a bigger pie. Having said that and researched the pizza economy, some price lanes:

$.99/Dollar Slice Pizza: A subgenre of slicerias that sell dollar pizza (or pizza for $.99) using inferior techniques and ingredients.

$2.75 The Pizza Principle: A correlation posited in 1980 by patent attorney Eric Bram in The New York Times. He postulated that since the 60s, a slice costs about the same as a subway ride. After the MTA voted not to raise fares to $3, that means $2.75 for the average quality slice.

$5-6 Pizza Deals & High-End Slices: Pizzerias typically offer deals of a slice and soda (sometimes even two slices and a soda) for $6 and under. The city’s most expensive slices also top out here.

$7-$9 Pizza No-Man’s-Land: While not bereft of pizza, a quasi-wasteland: too much for a slice, too little for a pie.

$13 Average Neapolitan & Baseline Chain Pizza: When Eatercrunched numbers years ago, the average American VPN Margherita cost $13.21. Not that you have an excuse to order from Domino’s if you live in New York, but ironically, their large, 14-inch "hand-tossed" cheese pie? A close $13.49.

$15-$20 New York Style Pizzas:According to NPR, the price of Manhattan’s average pizza range, depending on the neighborhood, from $12 to $23. By my last calculations, examining the top 10 to 30 pizzerias in each borough, the average prices for Gotham’s best large plain cheese pizzas are: Manhattan $19.13; Queens $17.61; Staten Island $17.21; Brooklyn $17.15; the Bronx $15.83.

Some ground rules. Prices are pre-tax: menu prices, not check prices. Next, because slices and pies are intertwined with our associations with pizza, and given you can’t find pies under $7.50, we included both. To avoid pizza pedantry and search for the best pie at every dollar level, we examined every style and eschewed a baseline. This is a snapshot of pies in relation to each other, but just as you can expect your average slice to soon cost $3, what you shell out for the following tangle of slices and styles may quickly change!

Check out the best pizza at every price point, from $.99 to $30.

Plain Cheese Slice at Vinny Vincenz

Some argue that the rise of dollar pizza correlates to the downturn in quality of New York’s average slice. Pizza made with cost-cutting ingredients + time-saving techniques = collapse of modern civilization. That’s why in the land of .99-cent pizza, Vinny Vincenz is king. Most dollar-slice joints rely on screens to simplify mass-production and cooking uniformity. The result is a spongy crust that only passes for a classic slice after too much alcohol. Vinny’s slice looks and tastes as close as you can get to the real thing without shelling out the subway fare typically associated with it.

Plain Cheese Slice at Patsy’s

Forget at this price. You could argue that in the 30 peak-eating seconds after it leaves the oven, a slice at Patsy’s takeout spot in East Harlem is a contender for the city’s best slice. Period. Factor in coal-oven heritage that goes back to 1933 and the dry-heat char that it imparts to the nearly paper-thin crust, and this is practically stealing.

Plain Cheese Slice at Joe's

Joe’s is the model of consistency, the slice paragon against which all other New York City slices must be judged. At Joe Pozzuoli’s West Village icon, you’re guaranteed a fresh one hot enough to burn the roof of your mouth. The pizza always strikes the perfect balance of sauce and cheese: teetering on the edge of too much without going over. This is New York City pizza. Fitting, then, that it’s the exact price of a subway fare.

Plain Cheese Slice at Best Pizza

Frank Pinello’s slice may cost a bit more, but you’re paying for a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef with Bensonhurst cred and Roberta’s experience to make delicious pizza with homemade mozzarella, and cook it in a century-old wood-fired oven. This is a thin, but pliable crust with a soft, bendable cornicione, a light but present acidic sauce, and a mottled, but thorough layering of cheese.

Spicy Spring at Prince Street Pizza

Until 2008, 27 Prince Street would have been Ray's, where you’d get awesome pizza made by Ralph Cuomo, who was in the mob. Since 2012, owner Frank Morano (who grew up eating Ray’s) has sold slices that get mobbed by pizza hounds desperate for a bite of Prince Street’s signature Spicy Spring. This crispy square with fresh mozzarella and fra diavolo sauce is covered with so many beautifully cupped slices of pepperoni—cradling delicious spicy oil—that they never all successfully stay on the slice.

Regular Slice at Di Fara

It’s not every day you see a pie painstakingly stretched and sauced by pizza royalty. And make no mistake, Dom DeMarco is New York pizza royalty. He’s been crafting beautiful pies in Midwood for 52 years, and is considered by many to be the man behind America’s best pizza. When Dom DeMarco is on, and that three-cheese blend, including imported mozzarella from Dom's hometown province Caserta, swirls in your mouth, it doesn’t get much better. Dom’s 80, which means that sometimes the rest of his family steps in. And with the opening of the new Williamsburg location, he’s going to be splitting time between the two spots, which means you’ll have 50/50 odds of him making your pie. It’s a chance you should be willing to take, especially given that his children have been at his side for decades and seem to have his routine down pat.

Square Slice at Di Fara

One of the things that makes Dom special is his ability to nail both round and square pies. The golden-oil undercrust of the Di Fara square slice adds a little more heft—just the extra crunch of dough needed to create terrific textural variation with nearly every bite. It's a perfect balance of crust to cheese to sauce. With the crunch come notes from the oven at turns nutty and ever so slightly sweet. And that extra bit of thickness lends a little more warmth, which seems to keep the slice at its prime for a few more precious seconds.

Individual Margherita at Mario’s Restaurant

Finding a really good whole pizza for less than $10 is no easy task. All the more amazing that one of the best cheap pies is also one of the city’s most underrated. It all has to do with location. Mario’s is tucked away on 183rd Street in Belmont, and its brick-oven fired individual Margherita pie is listed without fanfare under appetizers like mozzarella Caprese and escargots. Its prominent crunch and bright San Marzano tomato sauce makes this not just a good deal, but a destination.

Napoletana at Zero Otto Nove (Lunch Only)

Scoring one of the city’s best Neapolitan pies for under $10 is like questing after pizza Brigadoon. You have to get up to the Bronx, during lunch. If you do so, you’ll find the Napoletana on the menu for a third less than the $12.95 during dinner. Be forewarned: this wood-fired pie cooked in 900-degree heat for under a minute doesn’t feature any mozzarella. There’s just the straight-up tangy San Marzano sauce, garlic, basil and oregano on Salerno native Roberto Paciullo’s signature light and chewy crust.

9-inch Marinara Personal Pan Pizza at Scarr's Pizza

Scarr's doesn't live in the past, but if you sit in one of its old-school booths and squint away the iPhone dock, you might experience flashbacks of New York’s squeegee-men heyday. Pizzaiolo and co-owner Scarr Pimentel worked at Joe's, Lombardi's, and Artichoke. His plain cheese is a heartening example of a return to the city’s slice glory days. But the 9-inch personal pan pizza claims this price range. Foregoing the clam ($18), toppings ($13), and cheese ($10) nets a marinara pie that’s similar to a Sicilian, but thicker and centered around an intense tomato sauce.

Cheese Pie at Lee's Tavern

If your idea of value is a full stomach, spend a ten-spot elsewhere. Pies at Lee’s are less than a foot wide and famously thin (we’re talking maybe four paper plates thick). Look to fill up on beer and fried calamari, the other two things this neighborhood staple is known for. For all its thin-crust rep, there aren’t many places in New York City that do the bar-style pizzas found in the Midwest or at Connecticut’s Colony. So it’s Lee’s unique lineage that you’re paying for.

9" Classica at Gruppo

Antonio Gomez’s mini-chain of Manhattan bar-pie joints haven’t made much news since kicking Jimmy Fallon out for a wisecrack in 2009. But Gruppo, Posto, Spunto, Tappo, and Vezzo have been churning out sneaky-good thin-crust pies in New York City for some time. Outside Adam Kuban's pop-up, they’re Manhattan’s standard-bearers for this incredibly under-appreciated style. Crackery-crisp, with about as much marinara, tomatoes, and fresh mozz as crust, this fresh basil-topped beauty is the perfect pizza for session drinking.

Rosso at Roberta's

The Neapolitan wave has washed over the country, standardizing a higher level of pizza. Even so, some Neo-Neapolitan pies inspire greater passion than others, and Carlo Mirarchi’s pizza still sets a high-water mark for the style in New York City. Roberta’s has, in fact, become one of the city’s most iconic pizzerias. And for less than the cost of a movie or a taxi across town, you can score a Rosso with a chewy, leopard-spotted cornicione and a smattering of tomato, garlic, and oregano.

Margherita at Kesté Pizza & Vino

When it opened in 2009, Kesté Pizza & Vino was at the forefront of NYC’s Neapolitan pizza movement. Despite the many that have followed it, Kesté is still one of the best at adhering to the strict rules meant to reproduce true Naples style. At Kesté, you pay for authenticity: a Margherita with sauce, fresh mozzarella, Pecorino Romano, basil, and extra virgin olive oil. Pizzas are made by pizzaiolos trained by Roberto Caporuscio, the U.S. President of PAF Pizza Academy Foundation, an organization that certifies adherence to authentic procedures.

Small Regular Pizza at Grimaldi's

Whoever’s camp you side with in the Juliana's-Grimaldi's war, there’s no disputing their coal-fired heavyweight reputations. For the uninitiated: Patsy Grimaldi, whose family was trained by Gennaro Lombardi, sells pies at Juliana’s in the space that was once Grimaldi’s, which he sold to Frank Ciolli, who moved nearby after a rent dispute. Given how interwoven these pizzerias are, price makes for interesting comparison. Juliana’s has heritage, but its small regular pie is $4 more, and the ingredients ratio can be a tad off (too wet). That makes a $14 check for a quality coal-fired Grimaldi’s pie great value.

White Pie at Nick's Pizza

Nick’s doesn't get the press many pizzerias in Brooklyn and Manhattan regularly collect, which is a shame given the magic it achieves with a gas oven. It can be difficult to tell apart these crunchy, piebald crusts from those fired in coal ovens. And the white pie here is truly special—a cornicione that comes right up to the edge of dry, and a crust whose horizon line holds strong against a wonderfully soupy and flavorful ricotta, accented with melted mozzarella.

Delboy at Paulie Gee's

At Paulie Gee’s, you’re not paying for Vera Pizza Napoletana. As Paulie says, “I've never had any desire to be tied to someone else's rules about making pizza.” What you are getting is this self-taught pizza man’s critical eye toward keeping his Neapolitan-style pies at a high level of consistency. That means a chewy crust with beautiful leopard-spotting, what Paulie says is “the best soppressata piccante around,” from 1925-founded Salumeria Biellese, fresh mozzarella, Italian tomatoes, and Parmigiano Reggiano.

Medium Cheese Pie at John's of Bleecker Street

Some say John’s has lost its touch. That its ingredients aren’t what they used to be. That it’s a tourist trap. But for my money, I always leave happy. Part of that is the feeling of old New York you get from the scratched walls and the gruff, yet endearing servers. Then there’s the coal-fired oven, moved brick-by-brick from its original Sullivan Street location by founder John Sasso. Mostly, though, it's the crunch of thin crust. The cheese-sauce swirl and the no-slice rule means, like old times, I’m finishing that pie with whomever I split it.

Large Round Vodka or Margherita at Joe & Pat's Pizzeria

There’s an art to stretching a 16-inch New York-style pizza this thin, one completely missed by Manhattan slice joints pushing 50 cold, average pies in their displays. Joe & Pat's is a master of the form, stretching their dough so thin it’s bar pie-esque. You can eat a whole pie solo without leaving in pain. Whether you opt for the purist’s classic Margherita, or the basil-laced creamy vodka pie (a customer favorite), the skill and care taken to create that slim foundation alone is worth the price of admission.

Roni Supreme at Emmy Squared

Detroit style supposedly originated from a place that cooked pizza in trays that automobile factories used to hold small industrial car parts. While folks use special high-lipped pans today, the effect is still the same: a light dough cushion with a crackly edge along the side of the crust where the cheese seeps in and caramelizes against the metal. At Emmy Squared, Matt and Emily Hyland turn out an addictive version. There’s a fresh chunky sauce, a generous blanket of cheese and Calabrian chili, as well as plentiful and crispy cup-and-char pepperoni filled with pools of spicy oil.

Sausage Pie at Louie & Ernie's

It’s hard to think of a better pizza value proposition in the city. First, there's the masterful crust, which is slim yet supports the copious sauce, cheese and sausage atop it—eye-rolling good sausage. Cosimo and Johnny Tiso source the links from S&D, which charges $9.99 per pound. Eyeballing it, a large features nearly a half-pound. So even at wholesale, for $4 more than the plain, you’re practically stealing New York’s best sausage pie.

Small Original Margherita at Lombardi’s

If a direct line to New York City’s pizza progenitor is motivation for where to spend your dough, the small “Original Margherita” at Lombardi’s is the move. No, this isn’t the birthplace of New York pizza. That would be 53½ Spring Street, where Gennaro Lombardi started selling pizza out of his grocery in 1905. But after a decade hiatus, Gennaro's grandson, Jerry, and Jerry’s friend, John Brescio, reopened Lombardi’s at 32 Spring. So if you want to establish a coal-fired baseline, you can’t do better than the six-slice, 14-inch original topped with fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, grated Romano, and basil.

Margherita with Garlic and Basil at Giuseppina's

Mark Iacano makes a tremendous pie at Lucali, but he's only open four hours a day and the line is famously long. His brother Chris, who worked at Lucali and opened what's well-regarded as a South Slope clone (some call it "Lucali East") is open an hour-and-a-half longer daily, and he does lunch and weekends. Giuseppina’s pies are also $2 less. Foregoing the splitting of differences between the milky swirls and bubbled, irregular crusts signature to both places, it’s hard to argue for a better pizza elsewhere for $22.

Square Pie at New Park Pizza

It's hard to imagine a crisper corner, or more buttery-swabbed dough cushion, than the ones that come out of the 1956 brick-oven Howard Beach stalwart, New Park Pizza. If there’s a movie theater butter popcorn smell equivalent for pizza, New Park is its self-serve pump dispenser. Thick but light, cheesy but melded with the dough, New Park’s pizza is a case study in balance.

Cheese Pie at Lucali's

Considering you can get one of Gotham's best pizzas for $20, anything more should be special. Well, if Dom DeMarco is Gotham’s pizza king, Mark Iacono is its prince of pies. Di Fara was Iacono’s inspiration, but he’s developed his own style: a thinner, almost pita-like crust with a wide, unsauced coastline. Mark goes lighter on the oil finish too. These are sought after, crafted pies—as many as can be made four hours a day, six days a week—and they’re sold at 2006 prices. Iacono told me that though his ingredients have gotten costlier, he’s never raised prices.

Hot Supreme at Margot's

Adam Kuban wouldn’t brag, but his pop-up is the city’s toughest online ticket since David Chang’s Momofuku Ko launched its system in 2008. As founder of the Slice blog, this pizzaologist spent years studying America’s pie scene. He could charge double. Instead, he slings ticket-winners a deal: one of America’s best bar pizzas and a drink. Kuban tinkers, so whatever’s new is tempting, but that Hot Supreme is a flavor monster: sauce, Romano, Kuban’s secret cheese blend, sausage, pickled jalapeños, shaved red onion, oregano, and black pepper, assembled in some golden ratio.

Large Vodka Pie at Rubirosa

Image via Arthur Bovino

Address and phone: 235 Mulberry St, New York (212-965-0500)Website:rubirosanyc.comPrice: $26

It took a while for Staten Island to get props in the Manhattan pizza game, but with Denino’s, Rubirosa (a Joe & Pat’s offshoot), and the new East Village Joe & Pat’s, the Em-pie-re City’s S.I. thin-crust game is suddenly strong. Since opening in Nolita in 2010, Rubirosa has set a high bar with its light, super thin undercarriage and balanced ratio of toppings. And while the Staten Island ferry may be free, not losing an hour to get there and back for the creamy-crunchy-cheesy satisfaction of a vodka pie with fresh mozzarella is worth the difference in cost of three average city slices. Its cult following means that there’s almost always a line, so here’s an insider tip: this pie-only spot will actually let you order slices at the bar from 11:30am to 5 pm.

Little Neck Clam at Pasquale Jones

Clam pizzas are legendary in New Haven, Connecticut. While New York City has flashes of brilliance from a few pizzerias here and there, too often what you get are dry pies and rubbery clams. All the more impressive that Pasquale Jones has been making a name for itself in a genre that’s difficult to execute consistently. Despite the pain it can be to get a reservation, and the fancy-pants feeling that comes with a spot that’s been known to attract Jay Z, Beyoncé and Kanye, its freshly shucked clam pie is a must-eat for genre connoisseurs. It’s not just the parsley and tongue-lashing garlic, but also a lemon-tanged cream that creates a “sauce” absent on most clam pizzas. Of note: as a hospitality-included restaurant, $27 includes tip.

Large Rubirosa Supreme at Rubirosa

Image via Arthur Bovino

Address and phone: 235 Mulberry St, New York (212-965-0500)Website:rubirosanyc.comPrice: $28

A plain cheese pie can be transcendental, but it can also be a canvas primed for the master's challenge: great toppings. And when it comes to toppings, there's that Great White Buffalo: meatballs. Think of meatballs and pizza in astrological terms: they're like Pisces and Gemini, a mismatch for the ages. How do you add something that heavy to pizza? Sliced thin coins or crumbles dry out in the oven. Half-globes wind up on the floor. All the more remarkable then, given how thin their pies are, that Rubirosa has mastered this topping. The workaround at this Nolita gem are juicy mini meatballs, which bring home the flavor without weighing down the slice. Light enough, in fact, to harmonize with tomato, roasted garlic, and cupped pepperoni.

Patate at Sullivan Street Bakery

The average for Manhattan’s top 30 pies is $18, so if you balk at spending $11 more on un-sauced, potato-topped pizza, you’d have company like Paulie “No-potatoes-on-pizza-ever” Gee. Okay, it ain’t cheap! Once you accept starch-on-starch and taste the crisp-cushy undercarriage of Jim Lahey’s Roman-style pizza, it’s an easy sell: paper-thin, new potato slivers with browned edges meld with an onion-thread tussle to form a rumpled sheet of sweetness. And hey, they make potato pizza in Italy. My former colleague (and eight-time James Beard Award Winner) Colman Andrews even called it one of his "most memorable" food discoveries in Rome.

Regular Pie at Di Fara

It’s true—Di Fara serves the best $5 (regular) and $6 (Sicilian) slices, but a pie’s the move. And while there are no extra or fancy toppings, no caviar or gold leaf (usually the sign of the inept or insecure), we’re still proud to crown this the city’s best pie. Now, for a bit of math. Let’s agree on two hours as a conservative estimate of a round-trip visit and wait. By the time you’re home, you’ll wish you had a second slice. That’s $10. Assuming you don’t live alone or have a friend who’ll discover where you went…you can’t play folks like that: that’s three slices and $15. For $15 more you get five more slices at a $25 value, to share, nosh on, or freeze. Regular pie please, Dom. Thanks.

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